1. Cryptic never could foresee that people would be loyal and roll alts. Even since pre-alpha the attitudes were "Ahhh people will play for two weeks, quit for a while, come back later". So good people just played the game the way it was intended and it hurt the bottom line.
2. Botters. But not just AD bots. ALL EXPLOITERS have cost Cryptic. Blaming just AD botting was simply terribly misleading. Exploiters already have a plan to strike it rich, and will fine tune within a few days.
Guilds like Tyrs have many guildies with 5, 10 15 alts.. easy. These are all honest players that do not exploit. Many are paying customers with over TWO + YEARS of play.
To ask players to go from 5-10 alts (a matter of pride and accomplishment for many) to 1 or 2 characters after 2+ years is terribly defeating.
This is an IDEA ON PAPER that has gone horribly wrong in motion. Its more than a catch 22, it is a perfect storm.
Solutions are many though, and Cryptic has a CHANCE to make this right.
So, HOW does Cryptic get this game back on track? Well the way you get ANY game back on track... there needs to be a GAME PLAN. And it needs to be announced asap, because to use a real estate term.... "time is of the essence."
So what we need as guild leaders first and foremost is a PLAN. We need ask our guildies to be patient because a fix is on the way and this is the plan. Without this, we are swimming upstream.
Guild leaders WILL HELP YOU stop the bleeding. We just need something to go with....
All is exactly true and pretty much share my thoughts.
What we basically see is bashing a loyalty and making it seem as a bad thing. Sadly: anyone who learned Economical subjects (Personally I'm Master degree in Econometrics) knows that even 'less paying' loyal customer is heaps more valuable asset that 'hit-and-gone' heavy spender. What I mean?The people who left or are currently leaving were making a core base of this game plenty times for over 2 years. Same people were NOT elitists and would not mind if Cryptic gave other new players a chances to catch up instead of breaking the game economy and spoiling game overall for any honest and loyal old player. Major portion of the player base which could be here, and stick with game even if things were sour, right now quit.
I'm heartbroken at voices of people who played game for about 2 months, many times did not even level up to 70lvl which say that "we were given everything on silver platter" or "we were exploiters". All was done within rules as old as Alpha - so it was not exploit. All costed us much time, much loyalty. It's also a lie that those people did not play: they DID. The same people we're taking about were the ones I could run successful Epic Wolves Den even before it was nerfed. Same people used to enjoy doing daily not feeling forced to it by economy but just to enjoy game and have fun. This way they did not feel like they were 'grinding all the time' they felt like they were playing. Sadly: all those I known are gone. And nope - none of them was 'only clicking leadership window'.
As a side note I might mention that 1st three who declared to leave the game were my fellow Econometrics graduates stating that no matter what will be done afterwards: economy will break least for 4~8 months. I thought they were just bitter about it but... I see it now (mainly since too many people left)
The not yet veteran players who think that change was positive many times seem to not see long run costs change and all it brings with it. The AD production MUST be raised some way. We know that it'll be deflating but sudden and not controlled deflation might kill the Nation economy much more a games which are 100% virtual and change in real time. With all due prediction and everything that anyone who knows Math made: currently getting into the point of (let's say) 3k IL became 5 longer to obtain. And yeah: I mean playtime.
I honestly think that 'adding' something to re-balance economy (nope not sinker, they were pretty not working even by theory, who thought them up?!) would do much, much less harm to players than deleting content.
Currently game became VERY BOT FRIENDLY. Bots do not care about time: they're doing AD generating content 24/7. People cannot make it that way so they're at big disadvantage. Mod said that they "Reduced speed limit on bots from 1000 mph to 60mph" by that analogy players speed might'= have been reduced from 500mph to 15mph.
Only thing I see in this move is forcing to pay more. But if many people quit then as stated many times 100 paying 20$ are better than 2 paying 120$
"You stand as inspiration. You are practically the Avatar of Buttkicking." -Quote towards Minsc "I choose You Jymaru!" ~for there are times when more than words need to do the talk
Here is my opinion on this, 'who is to blame game'.
I play since beta. I begun playing with some friends who all played MMORPGs for several years. Some real freaks, who calculated win/ lose min/ max everything. Right from the start they told me to build an leadership army for my chars progress.
While using leadership on the chars I played, I did not build chars, just to do leadership. I was able to progress, by running CN, DK etc. and selling the drops. Later you could get artefacts from HEs and sell them or some other stuff.
In the time I played, the income I generated from PLAYING the game got smaller and smaller with every Mod, every change, every month. Every time I fond something to generate AD/ RAD, it got screwed.
Some examples? CN farmruns, where is CN? DK for T2 gear, you were able get it as random drop from Tiamat. Prices dropped from 1.2 Million AD to salvage costs. Running dungeons in the dungeon hour for items to salvage, Now you have to use a key to open the chests. 'Once in a livetime' companions, sold for 1.2 million ADs, dropped like candy at the winter fest, devaluating companions and skirmish farming. I could get on and on about all the changes by the DEVs, for this or that reason, making playing the game inferior to farming leadership.
THEY forced our hands to go for leadership, if we want to keep decent gear and generate enough AD, by decreasing ways to earn ADs ingame while creating one AD sink after the other. Legendaries, Rank 12s, new mounts, etc and now strongholds.
For ONE boon rank 1 your guild has to spent 2.5 MILLION ADs. That does NOT include the costs to get your guild hall to rank 5 to be able to unlock it. JUST THE BOON ITSELF 2.5 MILLION ADs. A build up stronghold with all boons +500 MILLION ADs.
Dont get me wrong. I was there in the fat years and I earned my share of ADs playing the game, buying and selling stuff. I am in a comfortable position, compared to many other players, BUT to claim, that they want to make playing the game awarding and implementing the changes they did, WITHOUT adjustments to prices, is BS.
I'd also like to say bashing the mods and our community manager Strumslinger has NOT helped this thread. They have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with these decisions. I'm a firm believer in asking them to please help make our voice be heard. THIS is where they are most able to help us.
Strum, Ambi, Zeb, Ironzerg & the rest... they play the game and are just one of us with more responsibility. Its crazy TIME CONSUMING trying to edit out all the childish comments of this community.
Just a stop in the madness to say thank you for having our backs, some of them for years. No BS, I call it like it is... they really do care about us.
- our ability to earn AD has been cut by perhaps 70-90% - fixed-price items that are absolutely required to progress are priced exactly the same
To me, this is inexcusable. Changing leadership in this way is an earth-shaking change and demands due diligence. How else can we react except to ask, "why is this so?" Is it laziness? Is it a knee-jerk reaction to the present sad state of the NWO economy? Or, is it a calculated move to try to nudge -- in a rather forceful way -- players to buy Zen that they can convert to AD?
The way that this was done does not engender trust. The utter lack of communication to valid questions and suspicions does not, either -- AT ALL. You do not do something like this to a playerbase and then initiate a complete communication blackout.
EARN? Earn you say? How? You log in and pushed a button and got AD the next day. YOU EARNED NOTHING! You did NOT fight, you did NOT quest, You put no TIME in for your new AD, your BOTS did!! That's the point here. You don't get to just push a button and reap the rewards. And Don't give me or any one else any bull about how you put so much time to doing Leadership should get to the AD. Every scrap of my AD I got from having to play with some dork in burning this or that armor and spend half of the run picking THEM off of the floor. If anyone who saw this flaw early on should have had the Integrity to notify the devs so the BS doesn't happen!!!
Hate to break it to you sunshine, but there is an extreme difference between "botting" and having multiple characters making money off a profession. You really should learn what the difference is before you let your mouth run off. Also, combat is just pushing the same buttons over and over and over again--what makes your multiple button clicking any more legitimate than someone who uses less clicks to perform professions? Some people prefer PVP, others prefer grinding dungeons, others prefer professions, some prefer playing the AH, and etc...all of them are examples of "playing the game". People have different play styles and one is not better than the other.
They should just wipe the player base, have everyone start over. People that enjoy the game will play and new players will join and no one will whine about how it was broken or use to be since everyone would be on square 1. Its the only fair thing to do since all these changes over the years.
I'd hate to lose my 100% complete HR with every boon/skill at max, but so we are all on the same playing field id take that sacrifice to get the game back to how it was when I first joined. "Fun, inventive and exciting to play".
I'd also like to say bashing the mods and our community manager Strumslinger has NOT helped this thread. They have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with these decisions. I'm a firm believer in asking them to please help make our voice be heard. THIS is where they are most able to help us.
Strum, Ambi, Zeb, Ironzerg & the rest... they play the game and are just one of us with more responsibility. Its crazy TIME CONSUMING trying to edit out all the childish comments of this community.
Just a stop in the madness to say thank you for having our backs, some of them for years. No BS, I call it like it is... they really do care about us.
Agreed. That being said: they have their hands tied. In position they're in: they cannot disagree with new policy. With situation we have: they cannot say anything really logically correct in defense of it.
I count them as the victims of higher management. Just like us players. They might even have it worse as they're literally between the devil (management) and the deep blue sea (of dissatisfied players)
"You stand as inspiration. You are practically the Avatar of Buttkicking." -Quote towards Minsc "I choose You Jymaru!" ~for there are times when more than words need to do the talk
I sadly agree that this system is just not helping us making more AD by playing content.
I never had a leadership army, just lvl'd up this profession on some of my toons that I actually play. I've never felt the need to do Leadership til mod 6. Before, i was able to run enough dungeons in my play time to get enough AD and salvageables for my toons. I play ALL classes. ALL have all the boons, yea call me an idiot insane for it...I play since Beta.
When mod 6 came out, it was a disaster to me, i couldnt get enough AD to get my toons to at least epic gears. So yea i did some leadership alts and bought some stuffs to get it to lvl 25.
Then i started to run all the leveling dungeons on those leadership alts. It was 6k AD during DD event on each toon. It was taking me 10mn per toon...Added to that the daily epic dungeon on the toons i was actually playing.
And i bought a VIP 1 to increase this amount. Call me fool... i was getting then 6.9k AD for 10 toons i wasnt really playing, just here to get some Leadership AD. But yet i was playing content... and it was taking me 1hr to run leveling dungeons on those 10 alts. I wasnt doing it every day, just the days i had more spare time. But it was playing content, as far as I know....
And now? just oh my god, even if my work is only taking me 20hrs ish a week, there's no way for me to play the content and make AD like I was before this change. So yea, sadly i came to the conclusion that i should stop playing some of those toons, or well maybe i should just find another game.
Im just not even complaining about the Leadership, for what i care! But i run HE's for Influence in my guild on 5 toons, i run some t1/t2 with my guild too, but yet i have to chose which toon because now i cant even offer myself some dungeons keys... So where do I find the time to get 7k AD on 10 toons i was doing before now that i have to run 2 dungeons for it, so double of my time. I have to chose: helping with Stronghold by doing dailies and HE's for Mimic, or grinding 2 leveling dungeons to barely get 6k AD...
Tell me how is it rewarding playing the content? That you removed Leadership was one thing, i wont even bother discuss it HERE, but changing the AD earned BY PLAYING CONTENT i feel so cheated, betrayed, whatever.... And yet you dare presenting it like "a better reward for playing content''... Players running dungeons and skirmishes have to do it twice the amount now. So im sorry but that's just not right. There's no reward in playing dumbmind content like this, i can't stand the T2 anymore because honestly with a 2.8-3k iL party, thats just boring, no challenge anymore, and T1 only offer the challenge of pugging them... 6 dungeons...really guys.
o and for the record ad has always been inflated you could dupe during open beta all the way up to caturday and they never removed the AD billions and billions of it, has been inflating market since launch and im sure even without all the generation up to this point is siting in storage for sale still. what you needed to do if this was about bots or inflation is make AD decay at some rate, not decrease the wage of player further exacerbating the issues of inflation. . . spectacular way to cause maximum anoyance by moving bots into the skirmish and pvp ques though. and for the record ive been playing cryptic games pretty heavly since city of villains launched. i used to be almost invariably positive lol, you probably cant find most of my older posts what with forum migration after forum migration but i have a decades long history of being generaly positive, but time and again cryptic has broken its covanant with its players, right down to neverwinter the game that would never have a sub having a sub program tacked on last month. the reason people are attacking the devs is because in real life if they were a government running a country they would be tossed out. you cant realisticly reduce the majoritys wage 50-2000% double or tripple working hours overnight, leave prices the same and not expect revolution lmao
if we can refine 24k ad a day, they should reward us with 24k a day for the casual player. As some said they have to pick do I run dungeons/pvp/skrishmishs for ad or do I run thru the fun quest lines. Personally I love the quest lines, there are some very good storylines the reward isn't the item but just doing them for me. It would be nice if each quest did give AD for completing them.
My co-worker hates pvp, he will never play it. Its the one reason he came here since this was a solo game with no need to do PVP to get ahead and the fact there isn't any player vs player at all in the world except for iwd in certain area's which is great for players like him.
But to force people to play things they don't want to do to get a small amount AD, its just bad.
Like some other players posted, before during the prime times of the specials going on, you can really good good bonus AD. I actually would plan my day around the times when to log in and play during those times for the extra bonus. Since I have so many character slots it was easy for me to keep a level 5 to 13 to farm black lake during the skrihsmish times, I got so good with the game packs I purchased from Crpytic I could solo the black lake skrishmish in 1 min and 47seconds (that is if no one clicked a barrel), I actually had the group sit at the zone in and I went in and cleared it myself in that time. During peak time, that was 1k ad. AWESOME! so I could farm up 24k ad one my one guy and load a second guy and get started on more AD before the 1 hour was up. Since all my characters are on one account I was able to transfer via zen market/ad exchange for free to lump all my AD together. doing this for over a year I obtained a crazy amount of AD. I guess that's the dragon inside me, I love shiney things and love a horde of an amount of it.
So running skrishmishes for me was fun and productive more so then my leadership army, but I just didn't have the time to keep running skrishmishs over and over and changing my schedule to match the bonus time, so these changes they made probably are good but they are no where near from what I read close to what they were promising.
That's why this game needs a complete reset, wipe everything! I would miss my 47m ad I have now but that's the breaks. I earned it before, I can earn it again
Another thing that was nice before was dungeon delving meant you could open the chest for free without a key if you entered during the delve time. That was great since you could get some decent items to sell at the auction house or just salavage for the easy AD. I really miss those days, Now I have so many VIP epic dungeon keys that I will never have the time to run the epic dungeons to use them keys. I stopped claiming my vip bags since its just too much. Wish those keys would also open normal chests.
.' Well, your leadership army generated AD worth thousands of dollars out of thin air. In real life this is a crime and would get you sentenced to at least 5-15 years... (stealing is bad, bad, Mom and Dad should have taught you better.)
You are very funny because people having Leadership profession on multiple toons weren't doing nothing but using a content that was here since the beginning. As far as I know, they weren't committing any crime but using (or maybe prolly abusing) a content that was offered. As much as I agree that this got abused too much and that now casual players get punished for it too, i just think that your statement is ridiculous.
And no this game wont recover, real customers wont spend money when the money they spent got taken away from them. The XB version did benefit of real pve content where loots were still things that people could sell. This PC version just offers nothing to sell to get some AD. Pre mod 6 was playable without leadership army. People would happily spend real money.I was one of those. I paid for two packs with my credit card, not fake AD. And i would have bought more stuffs with my credit card if Mod 6 never happened. Mod 6 and all those new BoP loots, three pathetic dungeons, all the other ones removed, all that killed the incentive to play. I dont play to make AD, but AD was helping me to play different classes. Now its just not possible. And once you ran 3 dungeons and did some dailies for the SH, what's left?
Stop the crying.. it's a bit too delusional. You cheated your way around the 24k AD refine limit and ruined the game for those of us who are actually paying customers, artificially inflated the prices on everything, manipulated the auction house, etc, etc.
Nobody cares if you leave. You are not paying anything, which means that you are not contributing anything of worth to the game. You are Neverwinter's cancer, which is now cured or at least put to a hold... 'But, but *sniff* my leadership army cost me 20 bucks.. *sniff-sniff*..' Well, your leadership army generated AD worth thousands of dollars out of thin air. In real life this is a crime and would get you sentenced to at least 5-15 years... (stealing is bad, bad, Mom and Dad should have taught you better.)
So stop the tantrum swinging, pack your things and just leave. I am waiting for the day, for over two years already. Neverwinter is going to be a better game, without the many freeloaders. Take a look at the XB 1 version of NW. No leadership leeches there. No Bot farmers there. Nothing but a healthy economy... The way it should be on the PC version, aswell.
So like i said, just leave. The game will recover, the real customers will start spending money again and you MMO-locusts/leeches can hop onto the next shiny game and ruin things over there. Everything's going to even out and everything's going to be ok.
Just my honest and humble 75 1/2 cents.
Tl, dr: You reap what you sow.
Just checking: You realize that many people who were even spending 50~200$ monthly declared leave due to majority of their friends leaving and considering it invalid policy? Check forums, the screenshots of cancelled money transfers are surprising me but... well yeah.
Personally? I've only spent on game about 320 Euro over 2 years. I surely do not consider it mind breaking and I did it mostly to get some companions or mounts without delaying my progress plans. Now I'll have to spend way more to keep steady progress or resign on any progress at all.
I admit new policy is good for future spenders. The more I am happy about how sane even community of spenders seem as people massively declare to stop spending on the game which they deem no longer fair.
Also: I never heard that people being "paid for their time and work" are criminals. Even Bible says otherwise. In fact by law: much more stable and morbid standpoints were raised by people who spent several hundreds over the game and feel... scammed?
"You stand as inspiration. You are practically the Avatar of Buttkicking." -Quote towards Minsc "I choose You Jymaru!" ~for there are times when more than words need to do the talk
Stop the crying.. it's a bit too delusional. You cheated your way around the 24k AD refine limit and ruined the game for those of us who are actually paying customers, artificially inflated the prices on everything, manipulated the auction house, etc, etc.
Nobody cares if you leave. You are not paying anything, which means that you are not contributing anything of worth to the game. You are Neverwinter's cancer, which is now cured or at least put to a hold... 'But, but *sniff* my leadership army cost me 20 bucks.. *sniff-sniff*..' Well, your leadership army generated AD worth thousands of dollars out of thin air. In real life this is a crime and would get you sentenced to at least 5-15 years... (stealing is bad, bad, Mom and Dad should have taught you better.)
So stop the tantrum swinging, pack your things and just leave. I am waiting for the day, for over two years already. Neverwinter is going to be a better game, without the many freeloaders. Take a look at the XB 1 version of NW. No leadership leeches there. No Bot farmers there. Nothing but a healthy economy... The way it should be on the PC version, aswell.
So like i said, just leave. The game will recover, the real customers will start spending money again and you MMO-locusts/leeches can hop onto the next shiny game and ruin things over there. Everything's going to even out and everything's going to be ok.
Just my honest and humble 75 1/2 cents.
Tl, dr: You reap what you sow.
This translates to: I pay money, so I deserve better gear, to me. By the way, get a law degree or at least some better education, before you try to call something a crime. What you did is punishable by law, at last in germany, bc you stated as fact, that somebody commited a crime, while in fact playing the game and using its mechanics, might not be as intended, but is no a crime.
The funniest supportive comments are by the folks who haven't even gotten to the grindy part yet. They are sub 60 and still enjoying the "fun" part of the game before the work starts and the fun drains right out. TBH I absolutely hated tending to LS minions just to be able to get some decent gear on more than one toon. I would have been all for a decent alternative but we all knew that was never going to happen. If you are going to come forward and say something positive about the change please be someone that did the L70 grind, got your boons, got your artifact equipment and artifacts and have actually have them leveled. For good measure be someone who has done that for more than one character. Then please tell us all how we can achieve that under this new and "improved" system. No takers? Yea didn't think so.
As someone who played the game legit and only started to get alts (a whole whopping two, which, shock and horror, I got because I wanted to try out the OP and GWF classes), alts which will now forever gather dust more than likely, because I have a 50+ hour per week job and things I like to do besides this game? You may take your broad brush and learn to be just a little bit more careful with it. Thank you very much.
You have a job, you can either spend money to progress, like it's meant to be or stop playing mmorpg's in general. It's not that hard to understand, is it?
Spend my precious money on a game where they have demonstrated a willingness to lie to my face and change the rules without warning (after happily taking my money), or put that extra money towards student loans, since I know Navient won't suddenly turn around and declare that they'll only accept money that's previously be submerged in the tears of third world orphans or something equally as daft. Decisions decisions....
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I am obligated to spend my hard earned cash on a crappy product. This is supply side economics at its finest. Cryptic makes a quality product first, then I spend money on it. Not, I spend money on them, which then gives them the right to turn right around and beat me upside the head by making it almost impossible to advance my alts unless I fork out hundreds of dollars (run the math on upgrading a single artifact weapon, please). I am leery of spending cash on a game where they then turn around and change the rules in what is a blatant attempt to squeeze me for more of it because "screw you give me money for nothing in return!" (Insert reference to Dungeon Keeper Mobile of your choice here)
What this then ties into, good sir, is what we call in the legal community (and several others) the "once bitten twice shy" problem. I've spent real world money on this game (among other things, a VIP to give it a go because I wanted to support this game and wanted to see it succeed). Not even three weeks after I did so, Cryptic changes the rules of the game, and due to what I can only assume is rapidly becoming the SOP at their studio, stripped me of my VIP benefits while assuring me that I would get to keep the bonuses because the bosses would drop more etc etc. only for that to distinctly not happen (again, I got a whopping 75 AD from a boss last night on my second dungeon run) and for me to watch my means of generating AD in game plunge to where it takes three times as long to get anything done for the same amount of effort. Now, I could start to spend more money to advance my characters, which is no doubt what they want. But how do I know they won't suddenly do something else like this. Like making GMOPs a Zen only store item, or ninja nerfing my dragon hoard enchants for the sixteenth time? Or coming up with another ham-fisted way to to psychologically pummel me into spending ever increasing amounts of cash on a game that is decreasing in value and fun.
The answer is: I don't. Then the question becomes, after a stunt like this, and what is a case of either the devs being incompetently short sighted or maliciously lying to my face, why should I trust them with my hard earned custom?
The answer is: I shouldn't.
So I won't. I will continue to play the game, to use my 2.5 year old Beta CW to run with my guild and assist them as best I can. But the purse-strings to my wallet shall remain closed until they demonstrate they actually care about our feedback and respect a long-loyal and dedicated customer enough they provide me and everyone else with a way to get AD to a reasonable number of alts, in game, in a more-or-less bug free manner that doesn't involve me having to massacre the Temple of Spiders so often that I can do it in my sleep and I can start putting it down on my resume that this is my second job.
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
The issue is only one of cost not AD generation.. its been stated repeatedly, remove sh donation ad, boons entirely, reduce all other customer by 50-75% and the game is fine.
However, if they do not, there is no way to really generate enough AD for both gmops and other items like rp and other items, buying simple cosmetic dyes is out of the question really.
See the problem, when you cant afford to throw AD around on simple things like cosmetic items, something is wrong in the game.
Bots will still exist but it will be far harder for them to create bots to grind game content than it will be for them to create account hopping leadership farms.
Hate to say it, but bots can do just about anything in the game already. They will have little issue adapting without leadership and racking in large profits.
That isn't what I meant.
I meant, logically, what will generate more revenue in less time: creating a bot to hop between characters and accounts to set and collect leadership tasks or having a single character grind for AD.
The obvious answer is that having one computer tied up to one character bot grinding for AD will generate far less than a bot hopping between hundreds of characters and/or accounts assignign set it and forget it leadership tasks.
neither the developers or myself think bots will have a hard time programming things to do. The change will effect how much AD they can generate in a given amount of time. Bots won't stop. They just won't have it easy. Think of it like a speed limit drop from a thousand miles per hour to 60. They'll still bot but they won't make far more than any player could hope to generate as the botting that they will have to do will be time gated by in game activities instead of number of accounts/characters hopped to.
One thing that bothers me immensely is that it does not seem that you get the point that how this was done has pissed off people as much as what was done. The AD's were just yanked out of the leadership tasks without any apparent thought to how to make it up other than saying at some point .... Have you looked down the list of what is left for leadership and just how odd it is now?
The other problem is that everything that has been done to deal with the "problem" had just made the problem worse for the players. The release of elemental evil and all the changes incorporated in there was the tipping point and really started this game on the path of a grind to nowhere.
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
The lowest common denominator is always to attack those who disagree with you, at the moment the flamer force is out , they wanted a removal of AD in leadership for several reasons:
A. they wanted to buy zen at a much lower AD to zen ratio. B. they didnt like or wanted to get involved in the AD army, found it too expensive or time consuming. C. they think that somehow the game is better without AD floating around.
The rest of us (or the very very vast majority) used our little AD armies to progress our toons. Sure some people abused it, it always is the case in every game.
AND AGAIN.. IM not opposed to the AD changes, IM opposed to current costing. FIX the entire economy, not just one sector. I do not want to hear the blather about aLL ad resources need to be used up before they do that, it will never happen. In addtion there is way too much grind involved in game to just farm AD as well, you cant do it all without playing 8 hours a day, something that shouldn't really be encouraged honestly.
You cant have it all ways, you need ACTUAL people in game as well.
The last issue is one of ALTS, there is NO acceptable way to play alts in this game atm, none at all. This isnt a good thing in any mmo.. This game went from competely alt friendly to 100% alt unfriendly in a couple mods worth of time (since 3 anyways)
They need to adjust things and do it rather quickly, for crying out loud IVE had to pug run things lately its soo bad. Which then makes me wonder how some of these people even finish anything.. lol.
"Then the question becomes, after a stunt like this, and what is a case of either the devs being incompetently short sighted or maliciously lying to my face, why should I trust them with my hard earned custom?
The answer is: I shouldn't.
So I won't. I will continue to play the game, to use my 2.5 year old Beta CW to run with my guild and assist them as best I can. But the purse-strings to my wallet shall remain closed until they demonstrate they actually care about our feedback and respect a long-loyal and dedicated customer enough they provide me and everyone else with a way to get AD to a reasonable number of alts, in game, in a more-or-less bug free manner that doesn't involve me having to massacre the Temple of Spiders so often that I can do it in my sleep and I can start putting it down on my resume that this is my second job. "
This X 1000
It is not the change, but the lack of proper execution. They care very little about our opinions and their silence is deafening.
And we should just openly 'Trust' that they will do the right thing???
Ah nope; I can't. And I find it very hard to have open discussions with guildies without spewing Cryptic Venom in the 'Hope' (and I use that term ever so conservatively and actually not believing) that the game makers will see the error of their ways and come to their senses.
What a disaster...
A true shame considering this game has so much potential...
The problem is Cryptic has a LONG history of making heavy handed changes that provide the optimum SHORT TERM benefit to them and offer empty lip service of "we are thinking of ways to fix things for the legitimate players who were effected so please stand by" which quite frankly never materialize. There was no super urgent reason to underhandedly in a "patch" implement this fix with NO discussion or warning and just offer a promise to work something out in the undefined future to the people who did NOTHING wrong outside of the rules YOU set (the need to generate tons of AD for everything and the fixed choke points you control). There have been multiple changes in just the last few months that fundamentally effect the game each time the real benefit was more in line with bringing in greater income to Cryptic and just and empty promise of things will get better overtime. Even when you do comment it comes off as more of an insult than trying to moderate as a community moderator should do. This is NOT good for the company. Get a thicker skin a significant number of your customers are royally pissed and they have every right to be. You had to know that there would be a HAMSTER storm of biblical proportions in this change after the furor of removing LS from the portal. Others then implied "wait until they remove LS AD completely" which I, wrongfully, thought was an overreaction. The introduction of the VIP program just before this, quite frankly, smells of a way to secure some “tide over” income for the storm they knew they were about to create. The time for communication was BEFORE not AFTER. OK the system was broken, we get it but this was NOT the way to fix it, a COMPLETE plan that addresses the REAL issues and pain and compensates the real players for their wasted time and effort from the previous attempts to fix things while addressing the problems is needed. People feel this is a money grab and they have every reason to, they are being really affected and a promise is NOT good enough. You still have not even remotely suggested what the “grand plan” is and quite frankly I do not believe there is any real plan in the works ,just a pile of unorganized ideas that will not be implemented IF that. This is costing customers, they owe you NOTHING, the company should be jumping through hoops to explain and offer real concrete proof of solid ideas to fix problems that show they care about the impact the solution has on their customers, and yes that may mean you have to explain over and over and be somewhat conciliatory. If this post seems harsh I’m sorry but it is for your companies benefit, there is plenty of other places I can spend my time and money.
And this level of word twisting is why you guys don't get responses.
I am saying that everything was done with the intention to balance it for legitmate players as the old system did everything to penalize legitimate players as they could NEVER hope to compete the AD generation of bots and players who had large leadership farms.
The change is far from finalized but the one sure thing is that the old system was beyond broken.
Thanks for the response. I'm not going to jump all over you for stepping up to actually be the single person to respond to the wolves (me included)... In your longer response the ONLY thing I'm going to comment on is that static things like GMOP/Companion Upgrades/Appearance Changes etc.... all remain at statically HIGH prices that don't adjust to supply and demand.
Food for thought.
The other thing is that there have been HUNDREDS of posts that have been suggestive in this thread. And the one that sticks out over and over that I see over and over....
"Nobody likes repeat grind content as the only form of reward."
It's not all attacks. There are common grounds and many suggestions for consideration in these 61 pages.
Those are making changes with both sides in mind and not just blindly making a sweeping change like this that comes off insulting everyone's efforts etc. What's left is tasks that make no sense, higher level tasks with worse rewards than the levels below them. The 25th level task reward gives no benefit for hitting max level... why even bother?
Anyhow thanks for responding.
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
When is the last time they did something correctly or adjusted it correctly without hue and cry from the player-base?
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What we basically see is bashing a loyalty and making it seem as a bad thing. Sadly: anyone who learned Economical subjects (Personally I'm Master degree in Econometrics) knows that even 'less paying' loyal customer is heaps more valuable asset that 'hit-and-gone' heavy spender. What I mean?The people who left or are currently leaving were making a core base of this game plenty times for over 2 years. Same people were NOT elitists and would not mind if Cryptic gave other new players a chances to catch up instead of breaking the game economy and spoiling game overall for any honest and loyal old player. Major portion of the player base which could be here, and stick with game even if things were sour, right now quit.
I'm heartbroken at voices of people who played game for about 2 months, many times did not even level up to 70lvl which say that "we were given everything on silver platter" or "we were exploiters". All was done within rules as old as Alpha - so it was not exploit. All costed us much time, much loyalty. It's also a lie that those people did not play: they DID. The same people we're taking about were the ones I could run successful Epic Wolves Den even before it was nerfed. Same people used to enjoy doing daily not feeling forced to it by economy but just to enjoy game and have fun. This way they did not feel like they were 'grinding all the time' they felt like they were playing. Sadly: all those I known are gone. And nope - none of them was 'only clicking leadership window'.
As a side note I might mention that 1st three who declared to leave the game were my fellow Econometrics graduates stating that no matter what will be done afterwards: economy will break least for 4~8 months. I thought they were just bitter about it but... I see it now (mainly since too many people left)
The not yet veteran players who think that change was positive many times seem to not see long run costs change and all it brings with it. The AD production MUST be raised some way. We know that it'll be deflating but sudden and not controlled deflation might kill the Nation economy much more a games which are 100% virtual and change in real time. With all due prediction and everything that anyone who knows Math made: currently getting into the point of (let's say) 3k IL became 5 longer to obtain. And yeah: I mean playtime.
I honestly think that 'adding' something to re-balance economy (nope not sinker, they were pretty not working even by theory, who thought them up?!) would do much, much less harm to players than deleting content.
Currently game became VERY BOT FRIENDLY. Bots do not care about time: they're doing AD generating content 24/7. People cannot make it that way so they're at big disadvantage. Mod said that they "Reduced speed limit on bots from 1000 mph to 60mph" by that analogy players speed might'= have been reduced from 500mph to 15mph.
Only thing I see in this move is forcing to pay more. But if many people quit then as stated many times 100 paying 20$ are better than 2 paying 120$
Sincere apologies for long post 'orz'
WELCOME TO MY ART CORNER!
"I choose You Jymaru!" ~for there are times when more than words need to do the talk
I play since beta. I begun playing with some friends who all played MMORPGs for several years. Some real freaks, who calculated win/ lose min/ max everything. Right from the start they told me to build an leadership army for my chars progress.
While using leadership on the chars I played, I did not build chars, just to do leadership. I was able to progress, by running CN, DK etc. and selling the drops. Later you could get artefacts from HEs and sell them or some other stuff.
In the time I played, the income I generated from PLAYING the game got smaller and smaller with every Mod, every change, every month. Every time I fond something to generate AD/ RAD, it got screwed.
Some examples? CN farmruns, where is CN? DK for T2 gear, you were able get it as random drop from Tiamat. Prices dropped from 1.2 Million AD to salvage costs. Running dungeons in the dungeon hour for items to salvage, Now you have to use a key to open the chests. 'Once in a livetime' companions, sold for 1.2 million ADs, dropped like candy at the winter fest, devaluating companions and skirmish farming. I could get on and on about all the changes by the DEVs, for this or that reason, making playing the game inferior to farming leadership.
THEY forced our hands to go for leadership, if we want to keep decent gear and generate enough AD, by decreasing ways to earn ADs ingame while creating one AD sink after the other. Legendaries, Rank 12s, new mounts, etc and now strongholds.
For ONE boon rank 1 your guild has to spent 2.5 MILLION ADs. That does NOT include the costs to get your guild hall to rank 5 to be able to unlock it. JUST THE BOON ITSELF 2.5 MILLION ADs. A build up stronghold with all boons +500 MILLION ADs.
Dont get me wrong. I was there in the fat years and I earned my share of ADs playing the game, buying and selling stuff. I am in a comfortable position, compared to many other players, BUT to claim, that they want to make playing the game awarding and implementing the changes they did, WITHOUT adjustments to prices, is BS.
Strum, Ambi, Zeb, Ironzerg & the rest... they play the game and are just one of us with more responsibility. Its crazy TIME CONSUMING trying to edit out all the childish comments of this community.
Just a stop in the madness to say thank you for having our backs, some of them for years. No BS, I call it like it is... they really do care about us.
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I'd hate to lose my 100% complete HR with every boon/skill at max, but so we are all on the same playing field id take that sacrifice to get the game back to how it was when I first joined. "Fun, inventive and exciting to play".
I count them as the victims of higher management. Just like us players. They might even have it worse as they're literally between the devil (management) and the deep blue sea (of dissatisfied players)
Hang on guys!
WELCOME TO MY ART CORNER!
"I choose You Jymaru!" ~for there are times when more than words need to do the talk
I never had a leadership army, just lvl'd up this profession on some of my toons that I actually play. I've never felt the need to do Leadership til mod 6. Before, i was able to run enough dungeons in my play time to get enough AD and salvageables for my toons. I play ALL classes. ALL have all the boons, yea call me an idiot insane for it...I play since Beta.
When mod 6 came out, it was a disaster to me, i couldnt get enough AD to get my toons to at least epic gears.
So yea i did some leadership alts and bought some stuffs to get it to lvl 25.
Then i started to run all the leveling dungeons on those leadership alts. It was 6k AD during DD event on each toon. It was taking me 10mn per toon...Added to that the daily epic dungeon on the toons i was actually playing.
And i bought a VIP 1 to increase this amount. Call me fool... i was getting then 6.9k AD for 10 toons i wasnt really playing, just here to get some Leadership AD. But yet i was playing content... and it was taking me 1hr to run leveling dungeons on those 10 alts. I wasnt doing it every day, just the days i had more spare time. But it was playing content, as far as I know....
And now? just oh my god, even if my work is only taking me 20hrs ish a week, there's no way for me to play the content and make AD like I was before this change. So yea, sadly i came to the conclusion that i should stop playing some of those toons, or well maybe i should just find another game.
Im just not even complaining about the Leadership, for what i care! But i run HE's for Influence in my guild on 5 toons, i run some t1/t2 with my guild too, but yet i have to chose which toon because now i cant even offer myself some dungeons keys... So where do I find the time to get 7k AD on 10 toons i was doing before now that i have to run 2 dungeons for it, so double of my time. I have to chose: helping with Stronghold by doing dailies and HE's for Mimic, or grinding 2 leveling dungeons to barely get 6k AD...
Tell me how is it rewarding playing the content?
That you removed Leadership was one thing, i wont even bother discuss it HERE, but changing the AD earned BY PLAYING CONTENT i feel so cheated, betrayed, whatever.... And yet you dare presenting it like "a better reward for playing content''... Players running dungeons and skirmishes have to do it twice the amount now. So im sorry but that's just not right. There's no reward in playing dumbmind content like this, i can't stand the T2 anymore because honestly with a 2.8-3k iL party, thats just boring, no challenge anymore, and T1 only offer the challenge of pugging them... 6 dungeons...really guys.
Im angry.
what you needed to do if this was about bots or inflation is make AD decay at some rate, not decrease the wage of player further exacerbating the issues of inflation. . .
spectacular way to cause maximum anoyance by moving bots into the skirmish and pvp ques though.
and for the record ive been playing cryptic games pretty heavly since city of villains launched.
i used to be almost invariably positive lol, you probably cant find most of my older posts what with forum migration after forum migration but i have a decades long history of being generaly positive, but time and again cryptic has broken its covanant with its players, right down to neverwinter the game that would never have a sub having a sub program tacked on last month.
the reason people are attacking the devs is because in real life if they were a government running a country they would be tossed out.
you cant realisticly reduce the majoritys wage 50-2000% double or tripple working hours overnight, leave prices the same and not expect revolution lmao
My co-worker hates pvp, he will never play it. Its the one reason he came here since this was a solo game with no need to do PVP to get ahead and the fact there isn't any player vs player at all in the world except for iwd in certain area's which is great for players like him.
But to force people to play things they don't want to do to get a small amount AD, its just bad.
Like some other players posted, before during the prime times of the specials going on, you can really good good bonus AD. I actually would plan my day around the times when to log in and play during those times for the extra bonus. Since I have so many character slots it was easy for me to keep a level 5 to 13 to farm black lake during the skrihsmish times, I got so good with the game packs I purchased from Crpytic I could solo the black lake skrishmish in 1 min and 47seconds (that is if no one clicked a barrel), I actually had the group sit at the zone in and I went in and cleared it myself in that time. During peak time, that was 1k ad. AWESOME! so I could farm up 24k ad one my one guy and load a second guy and get started on more AD before the 1 hour was up. Since all my characters are on one account I was able to transfer via zen market/ad exchange for free to lump all my AD together. doing this for over a year I obtained a crazy amount of AD. I guess that's the dragon inside me, I love shiney things and love a horde of an amount of it.
So running skrishmishes for me was fun and productive more so then my leadership army, but I just didn't have the time to keep running skrishmishs over and over and changing my schedule to match the bonus time, so these changes they made probably are good but they are no where near from what I read close to what they were promising.
That's why this game needs a complete reset, wipe everything! I would miss my 47m ad I have now but that's the breaks. I earned it before, I can earn it again
And no this game wont recover, real customers wont spend money when the money they spent got taken away from them. The XB version did benefit of real pve content where loots were still things that people could sell.
This PC version just offers nothing to sell to get some AD.
Pre mod 6 was playable without leadership army. People would happily spend real money.I was one of those. I paid for two packs with my credit card, not fake AD. And i would have bought more stuffs with my credit card if Mod 6 never happened. Mod 6 and all those new BoP loots, three pathetic dungeons, all the other ones removed, all that killed the incentive to play. I dont play to make AD, but AD was helping me to play different classes. Now its just not possible. And once you ran 3 dungeons and did some dailies for the SH, what's left?
Personally? I've only spent on game about 320 Euro over 2 years. I surely do not consider it mind breaking and I did it mostly to get some companions or mounts without delaying my progress plans. Now I'll have to spend way more to keep steady progress or resign on any progress at all.
I admit new policy is good for future spenders. The more I am happy about how sane even community of spenders seem as people massively declare to stop spending on the game which they deem no longer fair.
Also: I never heard that people being "paid for their time and work" are criminals. Even Bible says otherwise. In fact by law: much more stable and morbid standpoints were raised by people who spent several hundreds over the game and feel... scammed?
Just Saiyan
WELCOME TO MY ART CORNER!
"I choose You Jymaru!" ~for there are times when more than words need to do the talk
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I am obligated to spend my hard earned cash on a crappy product. This is supply side economics at its finest. Cryptic makes a quality product first, then I spend money on it. Not, I spend money on them, which then gives them the right to turn right around and beat me upside the head by making it almost impossible to advance my alts unless I fork out hundreds of dollars (run the math on upgrading a single artifact weapon, please). I am leery of spending cash on a game where they then turn around and change the rules in what is a blatant attempt to squeeze me for more of it because "screw you give me money for nothing in return!" (Insert reference to Dungeon Keeper Mobile of your choice here)
What this then ties into, good sir, is what we call in the legal community (and several others) the "once bitten twice shy" problem. I've spent real world money on this game (among other things, a VIP to give it a go because I wanted to support this game and wanted to see it succeed). Not even three weeks after I did so, Cryptic changes the rules of the game, and due to what I can only assume is rapidly becoming the SOP at their studio, stripped me of my VIP benefits while assuring me that I would get to keep the bonuses because the bosses would drop more etc etc. only for that to distinctly not happen (again, I got a whopping 75 AD from a boss last night on my second dungeon run) and for me to watch my means of generating AD in game plunge to where it takes three times as long to get anything done for the same amount of effort. Now, I could start to spend more money to advance my characters, which is no doubt what they want. But how do I know they won't suddenly do something else like this. Like making GMOPs a Zen only store item, or ninja nerfing my dragon hoard enchants for the sixteenth time? Or coming up with another ham-fisted way to to psychologically pummel me into spending ever increasing amounts of cash on a game that is decreasing in value and fun.
The answer is: I don't. Then the question becomes, after a stunt like this, and what is a case of either the devs being incompetently short sighted or maliciously lying to my face, why should I trust them with my hard earned custom?
The answer is: I shouldn't.
So I won't. I will continue to play the game, to use my 2.5 year old Beta CW to run with my guild and assist them as best I can. But the purse-strings to my wallet shall remain closed until they demonstrate they actually care about our feedback and respect a long-loyal and dedicated customer enough they provide me and everyone else with a way to get AD to a reasonable number of alts, in game, in a more-or-less bug free manner that doesn't involve me having to massacre the Temple of Spiders so often that I can do it in my sleep and I can start putting it down on my resume that this is my second job.
However, if they do not, there is no way to really generate enough AD for both gmops and other items like rp and other items, buying simple cosmetic dyes is out of the question really.
See the problem, when you cant afford to throw AD around on simple things like cosmetic items, something is wrong in the game.
The other problem is that everything that has been done to deal with the "problem" had just made the problem worse for the players. The release of elemental evil and all the changes incorporated in there was the tipping point and really started this game on the path of a grind to nowhere.
G
A. they wanted to buy zen at a much lower AD to zen ratio.
B. they didnt like or wanted to get involved in the AD army, found it too expensive or time consuming.
C. they think that somehow the game is better without AD floating around.
The rest of us (or the very very vast majority) used our little AD armies to progress our toons. Sure some people abused it, it always is the case in every game.
AND AGAIN.. IM not opposed to the AD changes, IM opposed to current costing. FIX the entire economy, not just one sector. I do not want to hear the blather about aLL ad resources need to be used up before they do that, it will never happen. In addtion there is way too much grind involved in game to just farm AD as well, you cant do it all without playing 8 hours a day, something that shouldn't really be encouraged honestly.
You cant have it all ways, you need ACTUAL people in game as well.
The last issue is one of ALTS, there is NO acceptable way to play alts in this game atm, none at all. This isnt a good thing in any mmo.. This game went from competely alt friendly to 100% alt unfriendly in a couple mods worth of time (since 3 anyways)
They need to adjust things and do it rather quickly, for crying out loud IVE had to pug run things lately its soo bad. Which then makes me wonder how some of these people even finish anything.. lol.
From aratech:
"Then the question becomes, after a stunt like this, and what is a case of either the devs being incompetently short sighted or maliciously lying to my face, why should I trust them with my hard earned custom?
The answer is: I shouldn't.
So I won't. I will continue to play the game, to use my 2.5 year old Beta CW to run with my guild and assist them as best I can. But the purse-strings to my wallet shall remain closed until they demonstrate they actually care about our feedback and respect a long-loyal and dedicated customer enough they provide me and everyone else with a way to get AD to a reasonable number of alts, in game, in a more-or-less bug free manner that doesn't involve me having to massacre the Temple of Spiders so often that I can do it in my sleep and I can start putting it down on my resume that this is my second job. "
This X 1000
It is not the change, but the lack of proper execution. They care very little about our opinions and their silence is deafening.
And we should just openly 'Trust' that they will do the right thing???
Ah nope; I can't. And I find it very hard to have open discussions with guildies without spewing Cryptic Venom in the 'Hope' (and I use that term ever so conservatively and actually not believing) that the game makers will see the error of their ways and come to their senses.
What a disaster...
A true shame considering this game has so much potential...
Food for thought.
The other thing is that there have been HUNDREDS of posts that have been suggestive in this thread. And the one that sticks out over and over that I see over and over....
"Nobody likes repeat grind content as the only form of reward."
It's not all attacks. There are common grounds and many suggestions for consideration in these 61 pages.
Those are making changes with both sides in mind and not just blindly making a sweeping change like this that comes off insulting everyone's efforts etc. What's left is tasks that make no sense, higher level tasks with worse rewards than the levels below them. The 25th level task reward gives no benefit for hitting max level... why even bother?
Anyhow thanks for responding.
Not since mod 2 probably.